Day After Day #186: Bring the Noise

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

Bring the Noise (1991)

By 1991, the fusing of rap and rock wasn't a new thing. Rick Rubin had already made it happen in the mid-'80s with Run-DMC and Beastie Boys, with the most famous crossover being Run-DMC teaming with Aerosmith to cover "Walk This Way." 

Meanwhile, in the world of thrash metal, New York City's Anthrax was emerging in the '80s as a force to be reckoned with; along with Metallica, Slayer and Megadeth, the band was popularizing thrash in the mainstream. Anthrax was also vocal in its support of the burgeoning hip hop scene; the band released a rap-rock song called "I'm the Man" in 1987, guested on U.T.F.O.'s "Lethal" and guitarist Scott Ian regularly wore Public Enemy shirts on stage and in photo shoots. PE then name-checked Anthrax in the song "Bring the Noise" on their classic 1988 album It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back.

In 1991, Anthrax and Public Enemy teamed up to do a cover of "Bring the Noise," which the band had been playing in concert for two years. Anthrax approached Chuck D of Public Enemy about rapping on their version of the song and at first, he was hesitant. But the band sent their instrumental version and after being unable to get both acts in the studio together, Chuck D and Flavor Flav recorded their vocals and Ian and Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante edited them into the song. Ian rapped the third verse of the song, and then Anthrax shot a live video with Chuck and Flav, which became a huge hit on MTV with both audiences.

"Bass! How low can you go?/Death row, what a brother knows/Once again, back is the incredible/The rhyme animal/The uncannable D, Public Enemy Number One/Five-O said, 'Freeze!' and I got numb/Can I tell 'em that I never really had a gun/But it's the wax that Terminator X spun/Now they got me in a cell 'cause my records, they sell/'Cause a brother like me said, 'Well/Farrakhan's a prophet and I think you ought to listen to/What he can say to you, what you wanna do is follow for now'/Power of the people, say/'Make a miracle, D, pump the lyrical'/Black is back, all in, we're gonna win/Check it out, yeah y'all, here we go again/Turn it up! Bring the noise!/Turn it up! Bring the noise!"

Ian and guitarist Dan Spitz provide an unrelentingly heavy guitar crunch while Benante's powerful drumming propels the proceedings along.

"Never badder than bad 'cause the brother is madder than mad/At the fact that's corrupt like a senator/Soul on a roll, but you treat it like soap on a rope/'Cause the beats and the lines are so dope/Listen for lessons I'm saying inside/Music that the critics are blasting me for/They'll never care for the brothers and sisters/Now, cause the country has us up for the war/We got to demonstrate, come on now, they're gonna have to wait/Till we get it right/Radio stations I question their blackness/They call themselves black, but we'll see if they play this."

Almost immediately after the song was released (first as a single, then on Anthrax's comp Attack of the Killer B's and on PE's Apocalypse 91...the Enemy Strikes Black), the two acts decided to do a tour together in 1991 with Primus and Young Black Teenagers opening up. Both bands enjoyed the tour, which was attended by predominantly white fans, but it introduced a lot of kids to Public Enemy and hip hop in general. The shows ended with Anthrax and PE playing "Bring the Noise," and Chuck said the early shows were difficult because Anthrax's intense live show forced PE to step up their game in concert. 

The collaboration paved the way for more rap-rock connections, for better and worse. Ice-T rolled out his metal band Body Count and created tons of controversy with the song "Cop Killer." Rage Against the Machine emerged in 1992 with an amalgamation of rap, punk and hard rock that was a big hit, and in 1993, the soundtrack to the little-seen horror movie Judgment Night featured collaborations with hip-hop and rock artists (including House of Pain and Helmet, Run-DMC and Living Colour, Ice-T and Slayer, Cypress Hill and Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr. and Del the Funkee Homosapien, Pearl Jam and Cypress Hill, Faith No More and Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E., and Sir Mix-a-lot and Mudhoney). And then toward the end of the '90s came rap-rock from the likes of Limp Bizkit, Kid Rock and Linkin Park.

Both Anthrax and Public Enemy have continued to release new music and tour over the last 30+ years, even teaming up again for a 2021 version of "Bring the Noise." The song still resonates all these years later.